As in many other cultures, the folklore of Britain favours right-handedness over left. Unlike many non-European cultures it's not thought to be "unclean", merely inferior. The word left itself comes from the Old English lyft meaning "weak, or foolish", and left-handed people are sinistral (a opposed to the right-handed dextral), with its links to the word sinister. There are a host of unfavourable sayings in English associated with the left side, like two left feet and left-handed compliment. Traditionally it was thought to be unlucky if a baby gripped with the left hand before the right, if a cuckoo (already an unlucky bird) called on the left, and black magic was referred to in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as "the left-hand path".